Vertical descent to ground!!!!

[Aussie_Paul]

This should create some interesting discussion as to what went wrong.

I have been conducting some more film/videos to DVD and came across this.

Aussie Paul.



YouTube - ‪Gyroplane vertical descent to the ground!!!!‬‏

[Scary Gary]

He didn't fly out of it in time .

[Master Roda]

Any landing you walk away from is a good one?

[gyromike]

It looks like he never kicked in opposite rudder to stop the spin.

[Scary Gary]

Sell him some blades Jon .

[Doug Riley]

Paul, was this the crash in which there was suspicion that the twin rudders were ineffective in a vertical descent?

I recall some talk about an OZ vertical-descent crash like this. The talk was that (1) the vertical surfaces were far enough apart to be outside the propwash and (2) the H-stab blocked flow from below to the verticals.

Of course, if the pilot had recovered normally from vertical-descent spins in the past, something else must have been in play this time.

Looks like the tail boom broke and the gyro rocked back enough to allow the blades to hit the ground. Long-stroke gear like the Butterfly's or the 1930's gyros' can prevent this sort of landing from being a crash at all.

[willisbr]

Rudders? Do those even move? Looked like they were fixed. Didn't see them budge.

[barnstorm2]

I am at work so I can't hear the sound. I don't know if any insight is gained from the audio but it is a curious sight.

Rudders or no, why did he not just push the cyclic forward to get some airspeed?

I can't really think of what would have caused this other than the pilot not realizing how close to the ground he was, control failure or perhaps the pilot "froze up".

This is interesting, I would like to know more about the incident.

It looks like at the end we was at least trying to flare some.

With the rudders (apparently) straight, engine at idle, what was causing the rotation? Why not counter the rotation with rudders and forward stick?

I think we could learn a lot if the video showed HOW he go INTO the decent and rotation to start with...

.


.

[Scary Gary]

Not that I know anything but it looked to me like he lost altitude awareness and when he did figure out how low he was he either panicked and didn't push the nose over and fly out or he really was too low to push the nose over and fly out.

[Sheldon]

did anyone else hear him throttle up at about tree top level.... did he induce the spin and let it get away, only to wait too long to attempt recovery......

[Chuck Roberg]

I agree with Mike, Gary and Tim. Waited too long to effect a recovery.

One of our club members did the same thing showing off for a local TV crew. Did a vertical descent spinning and waited too long. Got to be careful when cameras or crowds are around.

[Ron Iaconis]

A while back Bill Parsons who was well qualified to do vertical spiral descents, hit the ground same way, had some spleen damage, Bill said that he got caught up in the excitement, and before he knew it he hit the ground.
When I heard him tell me that, I only do ONE ( 1 ) vertical spiral when I do them for fear that I may well fall into that trap. I as well make sure that I am pretty high when I do them too

[EI-GYRO]

Jean-Claude raised a question regarding an accident in France, where a pilot
descended to the ground from a rotating vertical descent.
The suggestion was that there might be a situation whereby one might get
'locked into' a rotating descent and fail to recover before impact.

I wonder if this may be a video of such an event.

JC produced diagrams derived from math calculations to show that a
rotating vertical descent is in fact a spiral descent, centred on a point
somewhat ahead of the machine.

In my limited experience of such descents, my yaw string suggests he is
right.
In a rotating vertical descent, I have found the yaw string 'leads' the nose
of the machine, opposite to what you would expect. The faster the rotation the more it leads.

Various fluctuations in stick pressure would also suggest to me that the rotor is
not seeing a truly vertical descent, but I have not succeeded in analysing these yet.


The guy in the video did put in some forward stick, (as he said), but not enough to
gain enough forward speed to 'fly' out of it.

It seems like he was too low before he realised he had a problem, and hadn't enough
height left to put the nose down enough to recover.

Looks to me as though he made a good 'touchdown', though, given the situation he found himself in.

Question; Where is rudder hinge-line.? I couldn't see one. Nor could I see any rudder
movement to counter the rotation.
It looked for all the world like a fixed tail assembly. Is such a thing likely?

[ms80831]

Originally Posted by Master Roda

Any landing you walk away from is a good one?

Any landing you can walk away from and immediately fly the aircraft again is a great one !

This was NOT a great landing.

[Fl90]

watch his feet and stick position......never tried to counter it

crowds
cameras
confidence